10 Heaviest Metallica Songs

Metallica has truly built themselves to become one of the most successful bands in metal history. From their beginnings in the hard rock streets of San Francisco to filling stadiums around the world, the band have penned some of metal's most classic songs...and even a couple of metal's most reviled songs.

Regardless of the more inconsistent moments in their discography, Metallica are always at their best when they are blowing you away with the frantic hymns of thrash metal excellence.

These songs were able to combine the sonic assault of heavy metal and mix it with the adolescent energy of punk rock to form some of the greatest moments the genre had ever seen. The best of these moments were when the band would stretch these songs from bite-sized 5-minute tracks to 8-minute hard rock epics that decimated their audience whenever they would play them.

Though the band could easy rest on their laurels in their glory years, each of Metallica's records have a certain badass metal moment that can make the most cynical metalhead bang their head. From the band's snot-nosed early years to their seasoned-veteran triumphs, you could always count on Metallica to bring something absolutely pummeling to the table.

Coming just at the end of their glory years and in between 2 of their most accomplished albums, Master of Puppets has certainly earned its place as one of the greatest album experiences in the metal canon. With all of the great tracks of adrenaline-fueled doom across the record, there needed to be an epic finish to put a sonic exclamation point on the band's masterwork.

Starting off with a subtle classical bass swell section from Cliff Burton, "Damage Inc." is the sound of Metallica at their thrashy best, with a tempo that is one of the most heart-racing on the entire record. James Hetfield's riffs provide a certain amount of finesse while spitting lyrics that deal with a system determined to work society to its eventual implosion. Every time the chorus hits with the line "Dying time is here," the listener is at their wit's end before Hetfield brings the entire band to a halt to whisper the song's title to the listener.

With one final whisper and riff from Hetfield at the end, this track snuffs itself out quickly, leaving 5 minutes of metal euphoria in its wake. Though there is a stellar collection of tracks across Master of Puppets, "Damage Inc." showed that Metallica had completely morphed from naive punk-tinged metalheads to undisputed lords of the genre.